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[Admiral Obvious]

Has anyone tried to do some !Science! with "foreign" weapons recently? Especially now that, in most instances, military class visitors tend to bring weapons with them from their civilization. I've been mostly playing adventure mode, and am actually curious about which weapons do what.

I'm mostly curious about what types of damage they are intended to deal, particularly the whip, but also the maul, since it should be a cross between a blunt instrument, and a stabbing object.

I'm also slightly curious about weapon efficency when talking about non-weapons (I beat an elf to death with a dead horse, and this, while greatly amusing, started to make me think about... other things that can be used as instruments of death).

How deadly am I if I stab my enemy with a sock for example? What about beating someone up with a helm found lying around?

Just some stuff I'd like to see explored more.

[Orange Wizard]

I haven't seen anything recently, but there's been a lot of testing in the past which should still be relevant.

For the most part, using things that aren't weapons as weapons is pretty inefficient. Socks, helmets, and similar small things don't really do enough damage to be useful. Furniture and the like might do a lot of damage but it'll make you/your dwarves so slow that you'll die before you get a chance to swing.
The only real exception is stuff like forks and carving knives. These aren't technically weapons, but they have very low contact areas, making them excellent stabbing weapons. Unfortunately they're kinda hard to come by in fort mode, so outfitting your military with masterwork steel forks probably isn't going to happen.

Mauls are basically just bigger, slower warhammers. Nothing fancy there. They're also too big for dwarves to use, much like pikes, halberds, and 2h swords, among others.

Whips are devastating. Not so much since the 2014 update, admittedly, but still are quite powerful. They deal blunt damage,  which coupled with ridiculously low contact area means that they can often shatter bones even through a lot of armour.
If you can import enough whips to outfit a squad or three, you won't regret doing it.

Foreign weapons tend to do basically what existing weapons do. Except in the case of whips, there's no advantage to using them over stuff you produce yourself. Especially considering you can train up weaponsmiths to produce masterful/exceptional stuff pretty reliably, and (usually) have better materials available.

[Bearskie]

Based on the raws alone, scimitars are basically identical to short swords (apart from a slightly more effective pommel strike). Longswords are better than shortswords, if the extra weight isnt too much of an encumbrance. I've heard good things about morningstars, they're like whips that use stabbing attacks. Pikes are bigger spears. Also, large daggers and tool knives are goddamn murder.

Other than that... meh. The foreign weapons aren't bad as per se, but combine their enormous weight, possible 2h encumbrance, and lack of quality levels (!) make them fairly unsuitable for fortress mode.

For more eccentric weapons, the Adventure mode crazies have us beat there. Might want to google around, there's a couple of weapon threads like this. Myself? I have great experiences with dead albatrosses. Shattered bones better than warhammers.

[shevtsov200]

helmets, and similar small things don't really do enough damage to be useful.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Well it's large isn't it?

[PDF urist master]

Most foreign weapons are similiar to or inferior to dwarven weapons, especially once you count in quality levels. There's still some notable foreign weapons

Any lasher is force to be reckoned with. Whips are unique for being the slowest weapon in the game but a hit from a whip, especially a silver one, is completely devastating and almost guaranteed to break bones. Scourges are similar except they deal edged damage and have bigger contact area and lower velocity rates, making them less lethal, but they're also faster weapons.

Large Daggers and tool knives have a very low contact area, meaning their attacks can easily pierce through armour and deal crippling damage to whatever part they strike.

Large slashing weapons like great axes or two handed swords are better for severing limbs due to their greater contact area. their large size probably makes blunted attacks more effective as well. Ditto for the pike, which is a more powerful spear due to having the same edge attacks with greater size. lack of shields for those weapons will screw them over against any fire breathers though.

Morningstars are completely brutal, though not to the extent of a whip or scourge. They're bigger than warhammers and pretty much have the same bash attack only they deal edge damage. It's a nasty attack that almost always pierce armour due to low contact area and then inflict a lot of internal injuries.

Actually one of the most devastating weapons in the game is the Pickaxe. They use mining skill to determine combat skill, which is easier to train than combat barring exploits. Pickaxes only have one attack so less time wasted on a useless pommel. That attack deals edge damage with a 2x velocity and a fairly small but not insignificant contact area, meaning it will very often pierce armour and can sever limbs fairly easily. You should really try having a squad of miners as with good discipline they can destroy anyone with the same efficiency or better.